La Prairie Les Wonders Cellular Treatment Eye Colour Ensemble for Holiday 2011

Discover the true beauty and essence of winter with La Prairie's newest holiday color story, Winter Wonders - a limited-edition color collection featuring elegant and luminescent shades for eyes, lips, cheeks, and face.

Discover I did! I went to Neiman Marcus specifically to see the collection, after seeing a La Prairie tweet a few days ago. The collection is stunning. I wanted everything, but had to limit myself to about half of the new colors. Today, we'll focus on the Cellular Treatment Eye Colour Ensemble in Les Wonders ($70).

Cellular Treatment Eye Colour, La Prairie's eye makeup classic, with its winning combination of color and skin care, offers the option of wet or dry application, depending on the effect you wish to achieve. As an ultra-fine powder eye shadow, it produces a subtle natural wash of color. Applied with a damp sponge or brush applicator, it saturates the lid with a more intense tone. Either way, it produces a luxurious, silky-smooth finish and radiant color that retains its clarity and finish throughout the day.

La Prairie color, while pricey, is proven makeup at my house. The texture of the powder eye shadows is luscious, creamy, and long-lasting. The colors have a subtle radiance that flatters the eyes. This is what I like to call "adult makeup." It's made for elegant women who want makeup to enhance their beauty. They wear their makeup, not vice versa.

The pretty silver compact comes swaddled in a dark blue velveteen pouch, inside the La Prairie silver box. It has the "usual" dual-ended sponge-tipped applicator inside, along with a large mirror. All very nice, but the colors of Les Wonders are the real draw.

I swatched in clockwise order, starting with the light pink at the top left in the compact and ending with the charcoal at the bottom left. I swatched all four colors in the store to ensure that I could wear all four shades. I can. From the La Prairie photo, I had feared that the top-level shades might be too pink or too red for my eyes. They are much prettier than they look in the pan. At home, I swatched the colors heavily (and dry) with a sponge-tipped applicator for these photos, which were taken in full sun.

The pink at the top of my arm is very light. It has enough pink in it that it shows on my skin. I'd call the finish satin. It's not flat matte. It's a perfect base shade for the other colors in the palette or to combine with other shadows you already own. It reminds me of the pink in Raychel Wade's Les Calla Lilies ensemble. I must pull that out and get a comparison photo. If I can put my hands on Raychel's palette this week, without digging through too many boxes, I'll add it to this feature.

The warm chestnut brown shade shimmers with luxury. It pops on the eyes, even when used lightly. The copper shade, also subtly shimmering, complements the chestnut brown perfectly. I see that right side of the palette as a perfect duo - and the same is true of the left side of the palette. You don't have to figure out how to use or blend all four shades in Les Wonders. You get a quad when you buy it, but you also get two obvious duos. I wonder if La Prairie arranged the shades in the compact purposefully.

The fourth shade is interesting and a little hard to characterize. In the pan, it appears to be touched with plum. If you look hard, you might even see a plum tinge to the overall appearance of charcoal grey on my arm. You decide. Skin tone may determine the actual shade. I had to go back outside to get a photo of the same shade, applied at the top with a sponge-tipped applicator, and below with an eye shadow brush. It's a color you can build, from an everyday grey to a glam evening shade. Whatever its color, it's very pretty!

The entire Winter Wonders Collection, including Les Wonders, is available at La Prairie's Web site and La Prairie counters now. Because it's limited, go have a look quickly if you're interested. I purchased this eye shadow palette and other colors from the collection (to be featured here soon) at Neiman Marcus.

Photo at top courtesy of La Prairie; other photos by Best Things in Beauty